Module D:  Marine, Small Animal Models

• Care and maintenance of small animals as per ACUC regulations
• Standard acute (survival) techniques (retro-orbital bleeding)
• Standard surgical procedures, tissue procurement
• Acute cell dissociation, culture methods
• Protocols for use of tissue ex vivo
• In vivo protocols, procedures (organ system function)

Gross Anatomy of a Mouse After Peritoneal Wall Incision

At this point you are probably telling yourself that this mouse necropsy routine is getting rather boring because not much is happening. So without further ado, its time to get to the really "good stuff".
1. You are going to make the exact same incision as you did the last time cutting up to the bottom of the rib cage. Now you are going to be cutting through the peritoneal muscle wall and opening up the body cavity. Since the muscle wall is slightly transparent, you can easily avoid the delicate anatomy underneath.
2. Reflect the muscle back or simply cut it off so you can have easy access to the structures in the body cavity.  3. STOP RIGHT HERE!!!!!! Before any cuts are made, there are a few things to think about. First…



Organ bath system for assessment of tissue contractile properties ex vivo

Cytokine-mediated inhibition of receptor function in tracheae from wild type and EP2 receptor knockout mice ex vivo

Tracheal rings excised from wild type (EP2+/+) or EP2 receptor knockout (EP2-/-) mice were treated 18h with the vehicle or IL-1b+TNF-a., washed then assessed for beta-agonist (ISO-) or PGE2-mediated relaxation of rings contracted with 10 mM methacholine.